Level Two Middle Stage:
Establishing Your Business Core
Focus: Establishing your business's foundation; building your business's core systems and structure
Key Leverage Point: Leveraging your time so you can invest at least 20 percent (one day a week) to building your business's core
Characteristics of a Typical Middle Stage Level Two Business:
- Business revolves around the owner.
- Owner must show up each day or the business suffers from the absence.
- Owner hits a revenue plateau; can't work any harder or put in any more hours.
- Outside world - especially customers - identify the business with only the owner.
Why do most businesses never make it past Middle Stage Level Two? Because the owners are entrenched in the traditional way of building a business for control and active cash flow based primarily on their personal production. Not only do they quickly max out on personal production, but what's worse is that every day, more and more of the know-how to run the business gets buried deeper in one person's head - instead of being captured in processes, procedures, and systems.
Sadly, these typical Middle Stage Level Two business owners stay stuck at the tactical level of doing the job the business requires instead of creating the time and space to step back and build the business itself.
Middle Stage Level Two requires building your core systems, controls, and scalable solutions. The challenge is doing that while balancing the business's need for you to continue to lead its daily operation. This is a delicate balance between what your business needs today and what it will need tomorrow. Thankfully, you don't have to figure all this out yourself.
The 5 Critical Components to Build at Middle Stage Level Two:
Your "Master System" - the system of all your systems. This Master System involves how you organize, store, access, and update most of your business systems. It can be an operations manual, a grouping of files on a server, or a comprehensive enterprise software solution.
Your "Core Systems." This includes key systems to generate leads, close sales, fulfill on customer orders, and deliver on client promises.
Your most pressing business controls, especially those around the financial area. These include accounts receivable, accounts payable, and financial record keeping and reporting, all of which help you manage your cash flow and protect against financial abuses. You also want to design your first rough dashboard showing how your business as a whole is performing at any given moment.
Your big-picture strategic plan. This includes your business priorities, plan of action, and branding and market positioning.
Your initial team. These are the early team members you'll lean on as you grow your business. You've still got to hire cautiously due to both cash flow concerns and your business's immaturity, but now is the time to begin hiring high order talent - slowly and deliberately. You'll also start systematizing the "Team" area of your business by developing written job descriptions, a draft organizational chart, and a formal hiring process.
Middle Stage Level Two Case Study: Wayne Brown and Lainy Vanderway
In Just 12 months Wayne and Lainy took their business to the next level.Wayne and Lainy had built a highly successful heavy manufacturing business when we first began working with them, but that business strictly revolved around the two of them. She ran the operations and financial areas of the business while he ran the sales and marketing end.
In a way, they suffered from the curse of competency that hurts many capable entrepreneurs. They were smart, driven, and incredibly talented at doing the work of the business. They also were particular about how they wanted things to be done.
This combination of factors lured them into building their business for control, which only leads to the Self-Employment Trap&trad;.
But when you have the right road map to follow and the strong, clear commitment to scale your business as Wayne and Lainy did, things can shift quickly.
Listen as Wayne shares in his own words how they leveraged the Maui community to grow their business:
"I wanted to take a moment to let you know how much my wife and I have appreciated working with the Maui Mastermind team as part of their consulting program over the past 12 months. When we first got started with the program we were a Middle Stage Level Business. Our business worked, and worked very well, but only because my wife and I were there every day to keep all the moving parts performing.
Over the past year in the program, we've been able to apply the Level Three Road Map to our business and reach an Advanced Level Two stage. We've begun to build our management team, there is a blueprint to build our company business systems (especially the master system of how we organize and prioritize our systems). We've also used the time management structure and accountability to increase our discretionary time to over twelve hours per week. This has had a huge impact on our ability to grow and develop the business.
The bottom line is that our sales and market share has increased along with net profit, our future prospects look bright and we have a clear defined strategy and plan to scale our business!
If you're a business owner who wants to take your business to the next level, I strongly recommend you to participate in the program and apply Maui Mastermind's wisdom and knowledge. It will be a great resource in helping you build the business you truly want."
Wayne Brown, The Trading Company
You see, it doesn't take decades to build a Level Three business, but it does take both a clear commitment to get there and a concrete road map to follow. In Lainy's case, she always had the commitment; she just didn't have the road map before getting involved in the program.
Resources For Middle Stage Level Two Business Owners:
Online Workshops:
- The Self Employment Trap (Video)
Home Study Courses:
Web Links:
Level One » Level Two » Level Two - Early » Level Two - Middle » Level Two - Advanced » Level Three